ASSOCIATED ARTISTS

In this area, we feature our associated artists that are important friends and members of the Visionary Art, Surrealist and Fantastic Realist Movements worldwide. While not members of our private network, they are members and associates with our extended associated networks such as Dreams & Divinities, Visionary Art Australia, Society for Art of Imagination, but also found on sites such as Deviant Art, Facebook, Saatchi Gallery and social networks where we had established contacts. Some may not otherwise be found on the internet and had been added through personal contact with the founder of the VAG and VAG Exhibition, Otto Rapp.

CARRIE ANN BAADE

Carrie was born inside a house made from a riverboat that had caught fire and was brought ashore. Her earliest memories and fondest recollections are of living in a magical place called New Orleans. Her family moved to rural Colorado when she started school. It was here that she spent long hours practicing drawing and paintings with books of great art while dreaming of far off lands. As childhood wore off, she was soon fed up with living in that incomprehensibly boring place. Saving up her money, she traveled the world exploring art museums and pondering ancient civilizations. After much eye gorging on five continents, she discovered that she had no talent for foreign language and returned to America. The problem she faced was what to paint. After many years of experimentation and frustration, looking towards the old masters for direction, Carrie became enraged by a world that seemed to have all the great paintings already painted and nothing new for her to add. Out of this egregious dissatisfaction, she attacked her library of art books, mercilessly tearing off their spines, and releasing the pages from their bindings. Out of this sea of pictured paper she cut new characters for herself and stuck them on to other painting’s backgrounds. Pleased with her creations, she busied herself with repainting these collaged articles into new masterpieces that she found far more entertaining than the old paintings they came from. Due to acts of fate, she is currently Assistant Professor of Painting and Drawing at Florida State University accompanied by her polydactyl cat. This turns out to be a perfect place for her to paint and plot to making the world more meaningful for everyone.

LENA BRAUER

I found my way to painting relatively late, just then, when I lost my first love, the dance. As a dancer I was a real romantic performer, and I am romantic as an artist. It is my intension to paint beauty, and I find beauty in nature everywhere.
Walking trough the mountains and woods I collect the elements of my paintings. They are not paintings of landscapes that actually exist, but I use those elements according to the rhythmus of my compositions.
Since all natural objects consist of particles, I paint them by putting together very small dots and lines, avoiding smooth areas. From a distance, however, they appear as solid bodies and brushstrokes disappear.

Nature is for me model and inspiration for all my paintings. Yet, I am not a painter of grandiose or famous landscapes. My love includes nature's small things everywhere. Things that lay on your way, grow there, crawl or flow without being recognized. I consider them equal to all the great attractions on earth.

BENEDETTO FELLIN

Reflections on Fantastic Realism by Benedetto Fellin:
Through it’s capacity for precise realistic portrayal, the human mind is able to move closer to the world of the sensually tangible.
Inspiration does not remain something abstract, but becomes visible.
And so a happy pairing of form and fantasy of mind and design rises from the canvas. [The two are distinguishable, yet inseparable].
The thread of fantastic realism weaves through the centuries of art his-tory displaying hundreds of insights into the labyrinth of human life.

EROL DENEÇ

A Fantastic Realist Painter, Sufi Mystic and Musician - Erol Deneç is a former student and protégé of the Master Ernst Fuchs. Initially discovered by Anton Lehmden in Turkey during a guest lecture, Erol was taken under the wings of Ernst Fuchs in Vienna and introduced to the secrets of the old masters. He is a contemporary and friend of De Es Schwertberger, and they are members of what is considered the "Second Wave" of the "Vienna School of Fantastic Realism".

PETER GRIC

The canvas (or board) is for me a vehicle, a kind of a space craft, to journey to unknown places in unknown realities. If the origin of my journey is in the world of the explainable and the describable, then I attempt to leave its orbit. However, the gravity of words pulls me back, that's why I am not taking any questions along on my trip, and consequently I do not expect any answers either. I just want to marvel about the things I see out there. I want to enter and experience new realities, new spaces, forms and dimensions. It's not about words, thoughts and messages, but rather about silent visions.

JULIE HEFFERNAN

Born in Peoria, Illinois Julie Heffernan received her BFA in Painting and Printmaking from the University of California, Santa Cruz and her Masters of Fine Art in Painting from the Yale School of Art. Her lush paintings are manifestations of Heffernan’s Baroque sensibilities and rich knowledge of art history—the interior spaces of her compositions often refer to grand ballrooms and ornate drawing rooms, while the exteriors are placed within abundant forests and imagined worlds. Something of a contemporary surrealist, her compositions are drawn from the peculiar, nonsensical narratives of her dreams. As a result of drawing so directly from the images of her subconscious, Heffernan considers much of her work as a kind of self-portrait and titles them as such.

CYRIL HELNWEIN

Cyril Helnwein has been taking photos since he was 10 years old, having started out with a Yashica half-frame camera that allowed 2 photos per film frame.

Since then his work has been shown at various galleries worldwide and featured in a wide range of online and print publications, including a recent article in the UK alternative lifestyle magazine Bizzare.

He has lived and worked in Austria, Germany, England, Scotland and the USA, eventually settling in Ireland in 1997.

His implausible photographs are famously free from digital manipulation – Helnwein prefers to use traditional photography tools such as lighting, movement and timing.

He is married to Irish actress/model Kojii and together they have three children.

MAURA HOLDEN

Maura Holden was born in 1967 in Philadelphia PA. She spent most of her childhood absorbed in a multi-dimensional daydream, which formed the foundation of her visionary quest as it continues today. Dreaming, drawing and water-coloring continually throughout her youth, Maura was able to present her first solo show at age sixteen, in the family home, with a large body of detailed paintings and drawings of inner landscapes populated by spirits and supernatural beings.

HANNO KARLHUBER

I like to show an old painting technique combined with a contemporary focus on the landscape and everyday objects, but with a magic point of view. This may reveal that there is something behind the pure reality, the pure appearance.

Coming from the Viennese School of Fantastic Realism (Wiener Schule des Phantastischen Realismus) I developed in my work the thought that fantasy and poetry can be very real in everyday life.

KRISTIAN KLEPSCH

The Prix de Rome and the Prix Albert were two internationally sought-after artist prices, Kristian Klepsch has been honored as a 24 year old for his fantastic etchings and still found no satisfaction in this art.

"The most difficult type of art at all is the engraving on glass," lectured his former teacher, Professor Cornmeyr, at a lecture at the Academy of Fine Arts Liege. "Here, the artist must have from the outset the entire image concepts clear and ready in his head, without subsequent correction options. It is only the pure form. Color can not help and the slightest mistake at work is no longer repairable '.

Klepsch pursued these words of the art professor for many years. But most irritated him the things that others before him had given up as hopeless.

Kristian Klepsch still sees the major challenges in the active material and glass. There was for him still real secrets and unsolved mysteries to be found. More and more, he has dealt at a young age with the grinding wheel and diamond stylus. Despite his successful sculptor activities at the end of the 60s, when he created a series of large sculptures in front of numerous public buildings in Bavaria, he was fascinated again and again the lively, sparkling wonderland of glass.

PRATEEP KOCHABUA

ประทีป คชบัว เกิดที่กรุงเทพฯ ปัจจุบัน อาชีพ ศิลปินอิสระ การศึกษา มหาวิทยาลัยศิลปากร

Prateep Kochabua is a surrealist artist originally from Bangkok, Thailand. He studied for a Bachelors degree in Painting at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Silpakorn University, and later worked as an art director in an advertising agency from 1984 to 1992. In 1995 he had his first solo exhibition at the Bangkok National Gallery.

CORNELIA SIMON-BACH

Does the artist actually create his imagery or is his imagination in the end only a sort of magical reception apparatus, antenna and amplifier? The artist is the recipient of numerous messages, wisdoms, symbols and parables and does not know the sender. The dreamer is a bridge between sleeping and waking. He is the bridge connecting the two shores. But each by itself is only a half, until both together make a whole.

Note: This section is growing, more artists will be added!
For future growth, we have now decided to add some of the associated artists in blog form, check out this feature
ASSOCIATED ARTISTS SHOWCASE
Artists added (either pages or blog):

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